Security News > 2024 > August > NIST finalizes trio of post-quantum encryption standards

The National Institute of Standards and Technology today released the long-awaited post-quantum encryption standards, designed to protect electronic information long into the future - when quantum computers are expected to break existing cryptographic algorithms.

The finalized standards include three post-quantum cryptographic algorithms.

NIST continued to evaluate two other sets of algorithms that could potentially serve as backup standards in the future.

One of the sets includes three algorithms designed for general encryption - but the technology is based on a different type of math problem than the ML-KEM general-purpose algorithm in today's finalized standards.

Despite the new ones on the horizon, NIST mathematician Dustin Moody encouraged system administrators to start transitioning to the new standards ASAP, because full integration takes some time.

IBM called the newly published algorithms a "Crucial milestone to advancing the protection of the world's encrypted data from cyber attacks," while also touting its role in the development of all three newly published standards plus the fourth, soon-to-be-finalized algorithm.

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https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/14/nist_postquantum_standards/